


From the Inside

by BunniesofDoom



Category: RWBY
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Coughing, Crying, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Everyone Needs A Hug, Family, Friendship, Gen, Hanahaki Disease, Hugs, Hurt/Comfort, Jaune Arc Needs a Hug, Platonic Hanahaki, Reunions, Ruby Rose (RWBY) Needs a Hug, Sick Character, Sickfic, Volume 4 (RWBY), Volume 5 (RWBY), Yang Xiao Long Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-28
Updated: 2021-01-28
Packaged: 2021-03-14 13:47:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29047131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BunniesofDoom/pseuds/BunniesofDoom
Summary: Being hurt by someone you care about can tear you apart-sometimes literally.
Relationships: Ruby Rose & Yang Xiao Long
Comments: 10
Kudos: 37





	From the Inside

**Author's Note:**

> Sometimes, you just gotta shove all your WIPs to the side and write some platonic hanahaki disease. You just gotta. There isn't enough out there imo. Content warning for mentions of blood. Enjoy!

Yang doesn't say it back. The silence in response to her quiet "I love you" is deafening, and Ruby ends up fleeing the room to avoid bursting into tears in front of her sister. The lack of words cuts her more deeply than any wound ever could.

Over the next few weeks, Ruby tries repeatedly to get through to her sister, to talk about what happened. They've lost so much, and her chest feels tight and heavy with guilt and grief, but at least they're still together, right?

But Yang doesn't seem to see it that way.

The stony silences when Ruby tries to talk to her sister quickly turn to angry yells and doors slammed in her face. Yang obviously hurting, and Ruby wants to—needs to—help her sister, but she's not sure how she's supposed to do that when Yang won't even look at her.

"Your sister just needs time," her father tries to reassure her, but the sentiment doesn't soothe Ruby at all. With every second she can feel Yang slipping further and further away, and she worries that if she can't pull her sister back soon, she'll lose her completely to anger and grief. She just wishes she could figure out how to help.

When she runs into Jaune while on a trip into Vale for groceries, it's the first spark of hope that Ruby has felt in a long time. She pulls him aside and they talk for a while, about what happened at Beacon, their shared grief, what they've been doing since the fall. Jaune expressed his frustration at being forced to just sit around doing nothing, and his desire to track down Pyrrha's killers and make them pay for what they did.

And this, Ruby realizes, is something she can actually help with. She knows where they could start looking—Cinder, Mercury, and Emerald had said that they were from Haven, and Qrow had told her that's where he was headed when he left. It makes sense to start there.

Maybe it's not the best idea that Ruby has ever had, but Jaune's face lights up when Ruby tells him what she knows. It's been so long since she's been able to help, to be useful, that she quickly finds herself agreeing to the trip. Jaune, too, seems brighter; there's a spring in his step as he leaves, promising to talk to Ren and Nora and stop by her house in a few days.

On the trip home, Ruby feels lighter than she has in months. She's been trapped inside their house for what feels like ages, stuck in place, watching the leaves change from summer to fall to winter. Now she has the chance to do something besides lying around feeling sorry for herself. She needs to do this.

She doesn't tell her father. There's no way he'd agree to let her go—he'd insist that it was too dangerous, she wasn't ready, all of his usual complaints. He hadn't even wanted her to go to Beacon when she'd be accepted early. He would definitely try to stop her. She'll leave him a note to explain things instead.

As Blake had pointed out before (and there's a pang in Ruby's chest as she thinks of her friend. She hopes that Blake is safe, wherever she is), the real world doesn't care if they're ready or not. The enemies surrounding them aren't going to wait to pounce until they graduate. They're out there, and right now Ruby has a chance to try to stop them from hurting more people.

It's now or never.

She does, however, tell her sister. Deep down, she knows that her sister is in no condition to go anywhere. She knows that her sister still needs to process her own guilt and grief and rage before she can move forward, but she also knows that it wouldn't feel right if she didn't at least make the offer.

Yang, predictably, rejects it. She calls the idea stupid, and reckless, and pigheaded. Ruby was expecting that much. What she wasn't expecting, was the venom in her sister's tone and the disdain in her eyes as she shouts at Ruby. "What do you think you're trying to do?" her sister asks, glaring at her incredulously. "There's no way that the four of you are going to accomplish anything besides getting yourselves killed. Just like Pyrrha."

Ruby forces herself to meet her sister's gaze. "You don't know that," she says, voice quivering in the face of her sister's rage. "We can still do something. We have to at least try."

"Fine," Yang retorts, laughing bitterly. "Go on. Leave. I don't care."

Ruby flees the room after that, furiously blinking back tears. The first time her sister manages to look her in the eye since they came home, and it's to look at her with such disgust that Ruby just wants to sink into the floor. She shuts her door behind her and lets herself fall against it, sliding down to the floor and pulling her knees to her chest with a sob. The dull pain in her chest that's become a constant companion in the months following the Fall of Beacon spikes suddenly, and she's overcome with a coughing fit. She gasps for air weakly as it feels like a hand has seized her heart and lungs and squeezed them, trying to wring them out like a sponge.

She's breathless and lightheaded when the fit finally stops, but she scrubs a hand across her mouth and forces herself to her feet anyway. They've leaving in the morning. She needs to pack if she's going to be ready.

The next morning dawns bright and early, and Ruby shivers as she slips out of her pajamas and into her usual huntress clothes. The weight of her ammo belt and Crescent Rose at her hip is soothing, and though her chest feels tight with guilt and worry she finds herself breathing a sigh of relief. She slips out the front door easily, locking it behind her without a sound.

With one last glance behind her, Ruby squares her shoulders and prepares to head to the meeting spot they'd agreed on. She can feel a pair of eyes on her back as she walks, but she forces herself not to look over her shoulder at the window she knows that Yang is watching her from.

Her sister has already made her choice. That much is clear. Now it's time for Ruby to follow through on hers.

But, distancing herself from Yang doesn't relieve the constant guilt she feels at leaving her sister behind. The constant pangs in her chest—of hurt, of longing, of grief—don't go away no matter how far they walk, and the humid climate of Anima doesn't seem to help any. Breathing is more difficult than it should be, and Ruby finds herself out of breath more often than not. But the others are dealing with their own share of hardships, so Ruby refuses to let herself complain as they continue to press onward.

Sleep, too, is difficult. When she's not jolting awake from terrifying nightmares, she keeps finding herself jerked awake by fits of coughing that leave her exhausted and breathless. Other than the ever-present exhaustion from multiple nights of interrupted sleep, she doesn't really feel sick. It's probably nothing. Maybe something in the air just doesn't agree with her.

When they finally arrive in Haven and get a chance to catch up on some much-needed rest, Ruby expects to feel better, for her mysterious symptoms to clear up on their own, and she finds herself increasingly frustrated when they don't. Especially since the others have started to notice that something is wrong.

"That cough doesn't sound good," Jaune notes with a frown.

"Yeah," Ruby agrees breathlessly—because what else can she say? "I think it's just the mountain air. I'm sure it'll stop soon."

"You were coughing before we got here, though," Nora points out. Ren nods in agreement.

"Please try not to push yourself too hard," Professor Ozpin chimes in, green eyes bright with worry. "Please do let one of us know if you need to take a few days off to rest."

Ruby clears her throat, trying her best to hide her simmering irritation. "Really, guys. I'm fine," she insists with a reassuring smile. "Let's get back to training already."

But the cough doesn't go away. If anything, it gets worse, and Ruby finds herself sidelined more and more during practice, out of breath before any of the others, even Oscar, have even broken a sweat. It's increasingly frustrating, especially since there's no reason for her to be feeling this way.

And then comes the flowers.

She's awoken one night by an incredibly harsh coughing fit. She gasps and coughs, wheezing desperately for air and hoping that the fit will end soon, before she passes out from the lack of air. It feels like something is stuck in her throat, blocking her from taking any air in—but with a few more coughs, she can feel something loosening in her chest, and she feels something tumble into the hand she has cupped over her mouth.

The coughs finally subside, and she pulls her hand away from her face to reveal a yellow flower petal, crumpled and stained with a few specks of blood, sitting innocently in her palm. A sunflower petal, she notes absently.

It's not exactly the first time Ruby has coughed up flower petals—when she was first learning to use her semblance, she would occasionally choke on the rose petals accompanying her semblance if she forgot to keep her mouth shut. But this is different, feels different, no matter how much she tries to convince herself that she's fine.

After a few more bouts of coughing up flower petals—this time the sunflower petals are accompanied by gardenia and lavender—Ruby finally decides that it's time to tell someone. She goes to Professor Ozpin, because if anyone would know about the cause, it would be him. Unfortunately, the former headmaster seems to be just as clueless as she is.

"I'm sorry, Miss Rose, but I'm afraid I don't know what might be causing this." He sighs heavily. "I believe I heard about a similar case about two hundred years ago, but at the time the records were so sketchy that I can't tell you anything more."

Ruby slumps slightly in disappointment. "Thanks anyway, Professor," she replies, voice hoarse from the endless bouts of coughing.

"I will do my own research into the matter, and I will most certainly let you know if I find anything that could help," he promises her, a sympathetic look on his face. "In the meantime, I suggest you try not to overexert yourself."

"Yes, sir," she agrees reluctantly.

And so Ruby finds herself relegated to less strenuous tasks such as helping with the cooking and cleaning instead of training. She tries to rest and distract herself from her boredom by reading her comics, but none of it seems to help much. Her cough doesn't go away—and neither do the flowers.

If anything, her cough is worse, and the flowers and blood have only increased. She's now coughing up whole flowers instead of the occasional petal (and coughing up an entire sunflower has to count as one of the more painful experiences of her life). And Ozpin's research doesn't appear to be getting him anywhere. Ruby is starting to wonder if she should just hunker down and prepare to ride this out for who knows how long until she starts to feel better.

And then Yang is there.

The evening starts off ordinarily enough. Ruby bickers with Ren over the best way to cook the ramen they're making, Nora chops the vegetables while sneaking a bite from time to time, and Jaune sets the table—when suddenly, Oscar comes skidding into the kitchen, green eyes glowing faintly. "Ruby!" he announces abruptly. "There's something I need to talk to you about!"

She spins around immediately, narrowly avoiding smacking Ren in the face with one of her flailing arms. "Uh, sure, just give me a minute—"

"Ruby!" Qrow calls from the living room. "I'm back."

"Be right there!" she calls back, before turning back to Oscar. "Let me go see what Qrow wants. We can talk in a little bit, okay?"

Oscar nods hastily. "Ruby!" her uncle yells.

"I'm coming!" She grabs the tea set and scurries out of the kitchen.

She's babbling as she enters the living room—about what, she doesn't remember—but her train of though screeches to a halt when she looks up and sees Weiss—and her sister—standing behind Qrow. The tray slips from her hands and falls to the floor with a deafening crash, but Ruby doesn't even hear it. All she can do is gape in shock at her sister, standing there across from her like it hasn't been months since they've seen each other.

Yang steps forward, and Ruby flinches back, hands flying to her chest as a pang of guilt threatens to overwhelm her. She swallows hard past the lump in her throat and babbles out a stream of apologies, trying to find the right words to mend the rift between her sister and her.

And then Yang is hugging her, and Ruby is frozen in shock. "I love you," her sister murmurs, pulling Ruby in close.

For the first time in months, the weight on Ruby's chest finally seems to lighten. "I love you too!" she squeaks out, sobbing in relief as tears stream down her cheeks. The constant pressure in her chest suddenly dissipates, sending Ruby into a fit of coughing as her lungs expand fully for the first time in months.

"Ruby!" her sister shouts in alarm. "Are you okay?"

The coughs go away just as quickly as they started, and Ruby feels relieved to find that she can breathe easily now. Whatever was wrong with her before, with the coughing and the blood and the flowers, she has a feeling that it's gone now.

She smiles reassuringly at her sister, pulling her in for another hug. "I am now."

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Please comment and leave kudos if you liked it.
> 
> In case you can't tell, I'm always a slut for hanahaki disease. I actually have a couple other fic ideas that revolve around the concept lol.
> 
> Just a reminder that I do take requests for fics, so if there's an idea that you'd like to see me write, feel free to message me and if I like it, I might end up writing something for it.


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